A five-try show by Deepings, including two from skipper Lance Charity, set them up nicely for Saturday’s Midlands Junior Vase third round tie against Worksop.

Fly half Alex Miller, centre Matt Edwards and stand-in full back Guy Cunningham were the other try scorers as the Green Machine kept up their 100 per cent league home record, with Chris Owen kicking 12 points.

Brackley closed the gap to 20-18, but then Lance Charity started to play well and we pulled ahead

Deepings coach Nobby Coupland

Coach Nobby Coupland said: “We had to go into the game with a makeshift front row because of Gareth Silverwood’s red card against Bourne.

“But Kirk Green and Dan O’Connell made sure our pack was going forward right from the first half and during the first 20 minutes, we did play all the rugby.

“We had some dominance in the scrums, but the disappointment was that we left points on the park and then feel asleep in the second half.

“Brackley closed the gap to 20-18, but then Lance started to play well and we pulled ahead after managing to keep hold of possesion.”

Deepings go into the weekend Vase tie as favourites against their Midlands Four East (North) opponents, in part due to both sides’ problems in taking their solid home form into away matches.

Coupland said: “We’ve got to take our home form on the road and, for me, Worksop is an extra game.

“Dom Peacock and Lance Charity will be absent so we can have a look at other people because there may be a point where Lance may get injured and we’ll have to put somebody else in.

“Worksop have won their last two homes games and lost all their away games, so it would be nice to have a cup run.

“But the way these cup games fall, people like time to spend with their families so you have to roll with it.

“Worksop play forward-dominated rugby so there’ll be a lot of kicks to the corner and we’ll just have to see what they’ve got.”

There was more good news for Deepings in that Silverwood, who was banned for the Brackley game after his sending off during the 14-9 derby day defeat at Bourne, is available again after a disciplinary panel handed him only a two-week suspension.

Meanwhile, try scorer and former captain Guy Cunningham said: “It was pretty impressive against Brackley and we played the game fairly well, scoring a couple of late tries.

“We were always in the lead and controlling the game after Brackley burned themselves out when we forced them to play a bit more rugby.

“One good thing we’ve got this year is a proper squad of 30 to 32 people who really are good enough to play first team rugby.”